1UP Interviews GT5's Kazunori Yamauchi

We visit Polyphony Digital and chat with GT's producer.

With Gran Turismo 5: Prologue captivating the Tokyo Game Show 2007 floor much the way it did in Leipzig, we took the opportunity to visit the Polyphony Digital studios and sit down with Gran Tursimo Producer Kazunori Yamauchi, with the man's personal translator Tsubasa Inaba on-hand for assistance.

As the new cockpit view highlights, the team has made significant strides in the fairly short time since Gran Tursimo HD came out. Yamauchi said that while working on the new hardware hadn't been easy, they are currently steady progress. During the planning stages for Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, Sony told us later, the resolution had been set at 1080i, but only a couple weeks after making that call, the team had a breakthrough that enabled them to hit 60 frames-per-second in 1080p during gameplay. Replays, however, will remain 30 fps at 1080p to allow Polyphony to add more layers of special effects.

The big Gran Turismo news from TGS 2007 centered on digging into the demo's My Page elements and the details of the TV mode. The new game interface stems from the team studying how incorporating online connectivity would impact the Gran Turismo world. Yamauchi talked about how the goal was to bring in a more personal element. To that end, you start by customizing both the centerpiece car and its background scene that serve as the main screen wallpaper. At the top, a band brings in online elements related to your friends. There are weather reports from around the globe at the top right, and all of your friends currently online -- all around the world -- show up as little points of light on a global map at top-center.

But, it's the GT TV mode that really highlights how seriously the team treats the idea of being part of car culture. Recognizing that auto racing has become regionally segmented, Yamauchi wants to use the Internet link through to Gran Tursimo 5: Prologue to make gamers aware of events you would otherwise not be able to see. For instance, GT fans are well aware of the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC, now known as Super GT) from their cars being in the game, but finding it on TV was all but impossible. With GT TV, you will be able to go to the Super GT channel and check out the latest events. And, when you leave your My Page screen on idle for a few minutes your video content will start roll.

Getting content like that is only one aspect of GT TV. Car manufacturers will also be able push video out to you that will be one part of the expanded dealerships in the game. These "channels" are embedded into the interface as another option right next to selecting a car. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for Yamauchi's plans. Ultimately, he said he sees a point where when you went to a dealership in the game you could take an official virtual test drive. During this test drive, someone from the dealership could ride along in the passenger seat with you, describing the car, its features and capabilities via voice chat. Once you decided to buy the car, everything could be done through the GT dealership short of going down to pick up your real new ride.

As elaborate as that sounds, it's representative of the team's passion for cars that runs "deeper than the sea." That passion, and tireless attention to detail form the foundation of the series. It guides everything they do. As Yamauchi put it, "racing is not only lap times; it's the whole experience."

Of course, we'll be plenty concerned with lap times too, though. And certainly having rumble back in the controller should help with them. Yamauchi said looking back on the history of the series Gran Turismo, it has always been one of the leading titles to incorporate rumble because it brings such an important feedback to the game. He termed the announcement that the PS3 controller would not include rumble "devastating" and added that it "discouraged" the team. It's return has made them very happy and working it back into the game was easy, given their experience with rumble in the previous games.

While no American release date was given to go along with the Japanese one, the demo gave us a few rays of hope. During the presentation Yamauchi kept accidentally canceling his way out of menus instead of selecting. Towards the end he apologized for this and said that he had been playing the Japanese version so much that the switch to the American version threw him off (in Japan the usual "O" and "X" button functions are reversed to the US). Without that to give it away, you'd never have known it wasn't the same Japanese version as the one on the TGS show floor

With any luck, this means localization is ongoing side-by-side with development and we won't have long to wait for Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, either.

ive always loved grand turismo

it never wandered away from the racing simulator its bee striving to be, its physics are in coodinance with real life and thats an amazing thing to try for, but theyve done it.
not only have they created the most realistic driving game but they stay true to te racing lifestyle and they go further in the realism.
real cars, classes, attributes, etc. tune your car, make it fit you and perform better, all while not using underglow and decals to make the car pretty, but focus on performance, the racing lifestyle and the realistic value of the game.

Well worth the wait...

Unlike Forza (which was a huge disappointment to me), it seems that the next Gran Turismo will be going beyond updated graphics, physics calculations, etc. to provide a much more robust experience. I'm glad they're creating a game that supplements the car culture, as opposed to just another racing videogame. In my opinion, this is going to be the only game that'll be worth $60 on any system, for quite some time.

Bring back the old chase cam!

Great article, Garnett, but I really wish you would have asked Kazunori an important question about the third-person chase camera found in GT4 and GTHD. It was radically different from the camera that was used in the first three games and it disappointed a lot of people.
The old camera from GT1-GT3 used to let the car rotate quite a bit before it would start moving laterally, but the camera used in GT4/GTHD is rigidly fixed to the vehicle, which greatly exaggerates its motion. I personally think the change has ruined that perspective completely because it makes the car almost impossible to catch if a slide starts to occur.
If you ever get a chance to talk to Kaz-san again, can you please ask him to put a setting in the options menu to "loosely" or "rigidly" fix the chase cam to the car. I'm not alone in my utter contempt for the recent change so you'd be making (potentially) millions of fans happy if you could convince to the guys at Polyphony Digital to go back to their roots.
P.S. it was a real privilege to watch the live podcast at PAX!
P.P.S here's a video that shows you how ridiculous the camera in GT4/GTHD truly is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kha6ndtfv0

ghost_7,

Yeah...

"the team had a breakthrough that enabled them to hit 60 frames-per-second in 1080p during gameplay. Replays, however, will remain 30 fps at 1080p to allow Polyphony to add more layers of special effects."
...And that's 1080p 60fps "NATIVE" RES. None of that "upscaling" and call it whatever HD setting BULLSHIT you choose, Cough**X360**Cough. LOL!!

This is it

Gran Turismo 5

Seems like a perfect game. As in completely complete representation of car culture and the experience of this fantastic world. I don't care how expensive PS3 is when prologue comes out, my PS3 system seller is finally about to arrive.

Can't wait

for the new GT, i'm a huge fan of the seires and the racing experience has always been top-notch. This looks to push the features way beyond the previous games as well as beyond those offered by competitors.